


Log Subject: Hanzo Shimada

by Cibeeeee



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship, Surveillance point of view, no one is nice in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2018-12-31 16:09:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12136134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cibeeeee/pseuds/Cibeeeee
Summary: Agent Jesse McCree was burdened with the surveillance job of Hanzo Shimada. It went from boring, more boring, to dangerous very quickly. If asked how he thought of his time watching Hanzo, McCree would reply: "Eventful."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> not betaed so grammar is atrocious

_20:45 Target and brother met after school for dinner. Target talks about work and further study. G scoffs and in a fit, throws his backpack over the bridge. Target does not seem to care about it, G pouts. Logged._

 

“Fucking rich bastards,” McCree huffed under his breath as he watched Shimada Genji’s expensive designer backpack that costed seventy-two thousand and two hundred yens drifted away in the limpid, impeccably clean river (he knew the price because Genji bragged about it to his classmates with the exact numbers, and Reyes specifically ordered him to write down everything, no matter how mundane or stupid).

 

His target certainly appeared to be used to his brother’s childish antics in an attempt to express defiance. The older brother, unlike their father, does not acknowledge Genji’s action much, nor does he stop it. He seemed to be the only one that could rile up the youngest son, but from what McCree saw – Hanzo doesn’t know he does this, despite getting on his brother’s nerves almost every day.

 

The brothers proceed on their walk to the ramen shop they frequented in. The owner greeted them with forced enthusiasm. Hanzo ordered a miso ramen and soba. Genji ordered a yaki udon and curry ramen.

 

They paid. They ate. The owner sent them on their merry way to their castle and sighed in relief when they were out of sight. His target never said more than five sentences.

 

McCree logged all of it down.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The thing about surveillance was that it was dangerous. Dangerously boring, but also dangerous. So Reyes sent McCree, because McCree had a knack for disguises and getting out of life or death situations with minimum resources and effort. He could adapt personalities better than a Hollywood actress wearing five-inch heels, all smiles and natural posture even if their insides were on fire.

 

Everyday Reyes gave him an identity. Name, backstory, legal documents. McCree hadn’t gotten himself into situations that needed to bust those out, not by the local police or the Shimada, but he wasn’t going to take the chance and Reyes would have his head if McCree forgot a single detail anyways.

 

Writing the information down without getting caught was the demanding part. Sometimes McCree wrote in the Sudoku section of a newspaper. Sometimes a sketchbook, a laptop, a Japanese language textbook. Identities that could bear to be reused were McCree’s favorite. The exchange student in the coffee shop, or the delinquents that hung out in the park.

 

At night it was easy, McCree only had to find a dark corner to watch Hanzo from. His Japanese was already good before he came on the mission, now it was almost fluent (in the lip reading department). His speaking still sounded like a foreigner trying to pronounce Hiraganas with the accent mutilating everything coming out of his mouth.

 

It was dangerous work – if he was following anyone but a spoiled college kid. Shimada Hanzo was one year older than McCree, but it seemed like his father was treating him like any normal son (except for all the training that resulted in Hanzo and Genji always spending two hours each day for physical therapy). In the past month McCree was stationed here, all Hanzo had been doing was waking up for training, going to the library and study until nine p.m. (This bothered McCree more than all the criminal activities the Shimada did), and then more training before sleeping. Although Hanzo never slept right away, always squeezing another hour of study.

 

It took McCree another week to find out in a phone conversation between Hanzo and his father was apparently Hanzo was put on hold from family business until his midterms were over. McCree jammed his pen on his notebook in frustration of all the time he could not have been here. Hanzo’s midterm was another two weeks away.

 

Two weeks of watching Hanzo training, studying, and on one occasion an outrageous spending spree with his brother that made McCree’s impecunious ass shrivel up and die a little when he logged it all down, was a huge stress. So much so that one day, when he was undercover as a blond and shaggy backpacker, he did not realize he was spacing out while staring at Hanzo (to make it worse, Hanzo’s lips). It wasn’t until someone rudely snapped their fingers in front of his eyes that McCree realized with a chill that his target was standing right in front of him.

 

“Er…” McCree very intelligently murmured. Hanzo’s eyes were dark and hard and much scarier for someone so young had any right to be. But the words Hanzo said was surprisingly warm, “Do you need help?”

 

McCree blinked and reminded himself of his role. When he spoke, it was with a heavy Spanish accent and sunny smile, “No, I was just – ”

 

Hanzo reciprocated with an equally warm smile, right before he held his hand up in a peremptory gesture and his palm slammed into McCree’s chest. That force probably knocked McCree’s heart into the other side of his body. He wheezed. “Then I suggest you stop staring at strangers. It’s awfully rude.”

 

The condescending tone and now damningly fake smile churned McCree’s stomach into a mess of ferocious anger, and his fingers ached for the trigger that could end this asshole’s pretty face right then and there. But McCree had a job first and foremost, so he let his eyes melt into panic and sputtered apologies as though he offended the president of the universe; and from the unscrupulous look on Hanzo’s face, he might as well thought he was.

 

The moment McCree turned away from Hanzo, he decided to take his surveillance task to another level.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_23:45 Target goes to the kitchen for food, and ends up spilling soda all over the expensive and irreplaceable carpet. Let it be noted that Agent 34-B aka McCree thinks only lunatics put carpet in kitchens. Logged._

_12:45 Target’s stomach growls audibly in the library and the pretty girl next to him chokes a laugh out loud. Target looks like he wishes to disappear, it would probably be a good thing for the sanity of the world if he did. Logged._

_19:26 Target’s brother trips on a loose tile while doing a backflip off of the roof. G then very angrily starts throwing equipment at Target when he laughed. This continues for five minutes until one of the bamboo stacks whack the Target in the stomach. Logged._  

 

Reyes was not especially happy with the personal notes McCree added in the documents, but he was the only one that read them before filing it as official intelligence (McCree snickered at the thought of Hanzo’s embarrassment being  official records, however petty that was), and protocol required him to send in everything as it was. So even if Reyes wanted to change anything, the only thing he could do was to mark every inappropriate note from McCree as twenty-five push-ups and wait to collect the punishment in two month time when the mission ends. McCree thought it was worth it, despite having four hundred lined up for him already. Not like it was any different than the regular Blackwatch routine.

 

Hanzo’s midterm came and went. McCree watched him going from sickly pale to unnatural green before and after tests. Even when bombarded by stress, there were still too many close calls where Hanzo almost noticed McCree. Once McCree had to duck into the restroom, and ended up helping a student that was so stressed by the exams he was puking into the toilet. When McCree finally got out Hanzo was nowhere to be found, though that was probably a good thing, putting gaps between tailing so the chances of McCree getting spotted decrease.

 

With Hanzo’s class schedule that Reyes sent, McCree found Hanzo easily enough. It was Hanzo’s last exam, and hopefully, also the end of watching him study for twenty-fucking-seven hours a day.  

 

_19:04 Target returned home and proceeded to sleep until morning. Logged._

* * *

 

 

Shimada Sojiro wanted his sons to attend meetings and transactions without actually making themselves known, then send them to deal with lower level jobs like extorting protection fees out of any shops and family that was unfortunate enough to live in the Shimada’s area of control. The brothers worked best together – for lack of better terms. And to be honest, McCree hoped they worked together. If Genji was off gallivanting somewhere, leaving Hanzo to work alone, the elder Shimada could be a scary sight even to McCree who was safely out of the zone of danger.

 

Seeing the citizens terrified and sometimes bloodied stirred up a belligerent part in McCree’s mind that he thought was only reserved for his old crime life. Distraught with the knowledge that _he_ used to do this kind of stuff to people.

 

Reyes’ peremptory tone shut McCree up quick enough when he asked for help to stop the Shimadas from getting their claws on the local. He said they had bigger assholes to fry, and ordered McCree to leave the matter to the police.

 

They both knew the Shimadas ran the Hanamura police force, but McCree said nothing.

 

If watching Hanzo bury himself in studying was bad, watching him bury himself in family business was like witnessing a teenage kid beating an animal but couldn’t stop because he was chasing a murderer. All the meetings Hanzo went to had nothing Blackwatch wanted, and Sojiro apparently thinks the next leader of the clan should work his way up by being a menace to society. All McCree could do was watch.

 

The reconnoiter of Shimada Hanzo only showed McCree how well the grooming of their next big problem was going. Hanzo was belligerent and unscrupulous, regardless of how much of a respectable façade the family tried to put on him. McCree had seen him suggested terms and deals with equivocal yet unnoticeable wording that it could put Overwatch’s scam to shame. The gangs would walk away smiling, thinking they’ve struck a perfectly satisfying deal with the dragons without knowing they’ve actually let snakes into their cartel.

 

McCree watched Hanzo smirked so many times he sometimes copies the curve without realizing.

 

On the other hand, Shimada Genji was frivoling away his time and family’s fortune. Hanzo started his studying months before important exams. Genji started his sweetly-worded-but-in-actuality-threatening letters to his professors two days after exam week. Hanzo told their mother that he didn’t care about Genji forcing his way out of troubles – and as far as McCree could tell, he meant it.

 

However, when it comes to family “business”, Hanzo very much rebuffed Genji’s constant excuses for partying, not that it ever stopped Genji.

 

Hanzo took this frustration out on making his part more ruthless than he really was, and that worked out so well his father and the elders were beyond impressed and, in turn, further making Genji think his brother didn’t need him to get a job well done. McCree drew a circle of arrows with an atrocious doodle of Hanzo with devil’s horn in the middle beside his notes.

 

McCree was recording another fight between Hanzo and Genji. It was the third fight in the same day and he was getting tired of watching their angry lips move. Genji wanted to watch the new horror film remake and Hanzo insisted the meeting next day was too crucial to miss.

 

“Nara _and_ Miyazaki will be there, and you know how important their help is to us.” Hanzo’s tone was becoming more stress by the second. McCree ran the names through his list and came out with no result. He sighed, resisted the urge to rub his eyes.

 

Genji jeered, laying out clothes. “You know very well that I hate listing to stupid politicians trying to word fuck dad into giving them more money, and I am of no use in this situation, so why does it matter if I show up or not?”

 

Hanzo definitely had a riposte ready, but McCree’s mind blanked and worked a million miles a second at the same time. He quickly ran a search through all the suspect on his list and came out with only a few results.

 

Reyes did not sound happy when he picked up, which McCree took it as everything was normal back there.

 

“There isn’t any Nara or Miyazaki in the Japanese government.”

 

“Yes,” McCree swallow his reflex to sigh irritably from getting cut off, but he knew Reyes will have his head before McCree dared showing any sign of disrespect. “But there is a Ryoki Serizawa from Nara and a Masayasu Kamino from Miyazaki, who both coincidentally works in the Ministry of Land. Exactly as you suspected, commander.”

 

Reyes did not take his bait at ass-kissing. Reyes hummed in thought and McCree resigned to the fact that those push-ups were inescapable.

 

“I think we just found our rats,” Reyes said. McCree could sense the smile even the man’s tone stayed flat. “I’ll have these two checked out. Get ready to leave, agent, you’ve been away long enough.”

 

No words on the push-ups, though it didn’t mar McCree’s grin.

 

He slipped away from his spot, the thought of getting one last glance at the still fighting brothers never crossed his mind. This was the last time he would see Shimada Hanzo, and McCree was more than okay with that.


	2. Chapter 2

Hanamura, six years later, was covered in even more pinkish opalescent trees than the last time McCree set his eyes on this place. The Shimada remained a filthy rich gang that made so much money they resorted to spending it by planting as many cherry blossom trees as the dirt beneath them allowed. The intelligence McCree got six years prior did rat the corrupted officials in the Japanese government out, but Sojiro did not build his empire on two avaricious politicians. As soon as the Shimadas found out their contacts in the government were being investigated, accountants were thrown into the mountains and burned alongside with most of the paper documents before Reyes even sighed the approve for investigation. Digital records were wiped except for a few illegal exotic animal smuggling that was clearly staged for mocking and left the commanders gritting his teeth.

 

They even went as far as switching evidence so that whatever remains Blackwatch and the Japanese government could scrap up would lead to a rival gang. McCree watched the surveillance tape in the briefing room that showed Hanzo walking in and out of the PSIA building just before the evidence was about to be presented in court. No footage showed him being anywhere near the evidence room.

 

The bastard even had the gall to cock his head at the camera when he leaves.

 

Was it still a victory that they confiscated one hundred and twenty-three crates of weapons when they know it was planned for them to discover so that thousand more could still make it through the border?

 

McCree didn’t know, nor did he care as much as his commanders did, if he was any honest with himself. He did his part of the job right, and that was all that mattered to him.

 

Now he was going to do it all over again. Target was still the eldest Shimada son, only now Hanzo was out of university, ten times as keen, and never alone.

 

How was McCree ever going to get any useful information with Hanzo’s head snapping in his direction every time McCree’s eyes lingered a second too long?

 

“I don’t know,” Reyes said, and what pissed McCree off was that he was certain Reyes _know_ what to do, he was just too swamp by other businesses or didn’t care or more likely both to offer McCree some peeking wisdom. “Get creative. But don’t use the backup team, they’re for emergencies So unless someone is dying, don’t call them.”

 

McCree grumbled and rubbed his hands over his face roughly. Hanzo was just out of earshot of his resentful moaning. McCree stared at him perniciously.

 

He was so tempted to just place bugs alongside the route where Hanzo would show up, or on his car, or throw it in his food so Hanzo would accidentally eat it and preferably choke on it and die. But the omnic bodyguards that could detect any unwanted electronics were assigned to every important member of the clan, McCree would more likely be breathing the air of Shimada jail before he gets close enough to do anything.

 

He had to make do – and luckily for him (not so much for Hanzo), Hanamura was a major tourist attraction, which means, lots of shops with shiny, clean, and _very_ reflective windows.

 

So there McCree was, standing guard at the oddest angle where even Hanzo would have trouble noticing anyone following. Struggling to make out phone calls and small talks that were actually codes from any reflective surface available. Only some were clear enough for McCree. Theoretically it should work, but McCree did not have the eyes of a surveillance omnic.

 

“You want my _what_?” Janice the-surveillance-omnic-slash-technician of Blackwatch yelped at McCree’s question. “I can make sure you get stationed there for five years, you son of–”

 

“Not your eyes, just something that could make my life easier,” McCree cut her off before Janice’s infamously acrimonious language could kick in. “Do you have anything?”

 

Janice somehow managed to make McCree shrink down in his seat through the holovid, “Do you know how much paperwork I will have to fill out to send you gear oversea? I don’t work for _you_.”

 

“You literally work for anyone who is on a surveillance mission,” McCree retorted. “And I’ll fill out the paperwork, if you want.”

 

“How dare you try to make me look bad at my job!” Janice cried.

 

“Er…” McCree managed a small sound, god, he was terrified of this person. “So…?”

 

Janice hung up without a word. McCree blinked at the darkened screen.

 

A day later, McCree received a package under one of Blackwatch’s aliases. Inside was a pair of generic black-rimmed glasses and a pamphlet of instructions. The glasses enhance a target person’s facial features.

 

McCree grinned and put them on.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It seemed to McCree that Hanzo was not just overly sensitive anymore, but full-fledged paranoid. Hanzo was much too skittish to be taken as the calm and collective leader people (not McCree, he’d seen too many things to not take him seriously anymore) take him as. McCree did not understand this change, not until one conversation between Hanzo and Genji.

 

McCree wanted to laugh at the fact that almost all important information he had gotten was from conversations between the brothers. They were supposed to be the next pillars of the clan, and yet there they were, crippling their business one brick at a time.

 

“How am I supposed to do this alone?” Hanzo hissed at Genji’s scowl. “I can’t believe you would run from _this_ too!”

 

“Everything is settled,” Genji said. “I don’t know why you’re always like this. I am no use to the clan, why do you try so hard?”

 

“Because it could be us next.”

 

“You’re overthinking.”

 

“He was perfectly healthy, why would he just drop dead one day?”

 

“Stress!”

 

Hanzo reached out to grab Genji with a force that made McCree flinched from his hiding place. “No, father was murdered, and you know it.”

 

McCree gaped silently into the darkness.

 

Genji’s fingers twisted into an ugly claw. “No.”

 

“You heard what Natsuki said.”

 

“We have no way of knowing if she was telling the truth, Hanzo. Stop it.”

 

“If she was lying, why is she dead as well?”

 

Genji went as still as McCree, eyes twice as fierce.

 

“Her body was found next to the kitchen this dawn,” Hanzo said. “She was our cousin, Genji, do you not understand what the elders have become? You need to be _careful_.”

 

“No,” Genji said. “No.”

 

“Genji…”

 

“I can’t live in fear that my own family could kill me, Hanzo.”

 

Hanzo stepped forward, eyes boring into Genji’s downcast face. Bravado drained clean from the younger brother. “Then you need to get yourself together, _brother_.”   

 

McCree’s comm was on and dialing before Hanzo left the alley of the club Genji was just enjoying himself in. Reyes picked up after McCree took three calming breaths.

 

“Spill it.”

 

“So, uh, funny story,” McCree watched Genji stumble back into the club, and wondered how could anyone survive drowning themselves in vice for years to get away from their family when the only thing they wanted was a family. “You know how we’ve been trying to take Shimada Sojiro down, right? Well, the good news is, it’s done for us. Bad news is, we’ll never get the satisfaction of putting a bullet through his brain ourselves.”

 

“…We need to talk about how you break news, McCree.”

 

But how McCree talk was the least of Reyes’ problem now. The Shimada clan had just been left without a head and they were functioning as though as nothing has happened. The only people who seemed to be affected was Hanzo, Genji, and the entirety of Blackwatch. 

 

The real power in the clan was no longer the eldest in the line and Hanzo knew this. Hanzo was struggling to figure out what his future holds without the luxury of running from it like his brother. McCree witnessed the process of the clan sculpting Hanzo into the next leader, but now it was obvious that leadership was never actually in Hanzo’s future. Hanzo was becoming a puppet, and the strings were already too taut for him to pull away.

 

Hanzo was in the garden when a group of stately men and women came strolling in. Hanzo’s shoulders square as though he was the boss. And the group bowed as though Hanzo _was_. But Hanzo’s eyes were sullen and the elders’ smile was contemptuous.

 

They talked.

 

Hanzo listened.

 

McCree listened.

 

McCree did not know what to do. He was thinking in Hanzo’s situation. The only thing he would want to do was to shoot everyone on sight, and from Hanzo’s expression, that was what he wanted to do as well. The only thing he _could_ do, however, was to do as the elder requested to ensure survival, and McCree was nothing but a survivor.

 

From the deplorable break in Hanzo’s eyes, McCree guessed Hanzo was too.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The clan elders did not give Hanzo a date which he was to execute their request (order), as though to give him a false sense of independence in this matter. A putrescent mercy. With one last perfidy bow, they left Hanzo in the garden, alone for the first time since his father’s death.

 

A dull pain settled in the back of McCree’s eyes. Hanzo had spent the last few month worried about his own life while his family was planning on killing Hanzo indirectly. McCree had two options: One, log this, and leave it at that. Or two, log this, and follow his guts.

 

Gabriel told McCree to trust his guts. But McCree knew it was out of the subtle kindness of wanting McCree to be more confident in his own decisions. Truth to be told, McCree had been screwed over by his guts more than it helped him.

 

Dusk fell in Hanamura. The sun was falling behind the man who was too numb to realize he was being watched and the man who was too numb to notice his chest was aching from witnessing this.

 

Hanzo’s shoulders dropped weightlessly, then he curled into a stoop. As though he felt a languor as heavy and suffering as the weight of the world, or the burning sunset behind him.

 

McCree’s target was the next leader of the Shimada clan, but his guts were telling him, the man before him was not.

 

He sighed. The ache had spread to his neck when he pulled out his comm.

 

“This is Agent McCree,” he said. “I am officially requesting the backup team to be on standby.”

 

The darkness expanded across the sky. Servants shuffled in and out the hallway. In a slow, drowsy fashion, lanterns suffused the garden in red, too bright and sharp. The servants discussed the amount of adjustment needed to be made to get that perfect, warm orange glow for the upcoming festival.

 

None of them noticed their master in the garden as they turned the lanterns off, drowning Hanzo in darkness, and out of McCree’s watch. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

The BW-5 squad received order to dispatch at twenty-three hundred hours to the safe house near the Shimada castle for standby. After two hours, another order came down. A few Overwatch agents would be joining them for assuaging purposes. The Japanese government did not approve of Blackwatch’s jurisdictions in Hanamura, but the second in command managed to convince the ministry to issue a permit after some vying. Then Agent McCree left to answer a call from Commander Reyes in privacy, and spent the next two hours explaining, convincing and mollifying his boss.

 

BW-5 were on standby for the next four hours. In the meantime, Doctor Angela Zeigler and her team arrived to supervise them. She outranked all of them despite her age solely because she was there on behalf of the two Overwatch commanders. Her polite and adamant attitude met no resistant nor respect.

 

At zero four hundred hours, Agent McCree barked orders into the communicator. All agents at the safe house moved out. Doctor Ziegler was to stay behind to hold command at base. That was the plan until McCree added a request vociferously: urgent medical assistance.

 

At zero five thirty hours, the safe house received a patient temporarily under Doctor Ziegler’s care. Transportation equipped with a fully established med bay was ordered to be sent ASAP  

 

Commander Reyes called for Agent McCree three times, but received no answer.

 

 

* * *

 

 

At zero two fifteen hours, two days later, Shimada Hanzo officially disappeared from the radar of the Blackwatch surveillance team.   

 


	3. Epilogue

When McCree saw the man sitting alone on the edge of the base on the top of the bluff, overlooking the dark sea, he didn’t even bother drawing his gun. It may be three in the morning, but the man was sitting in a way that didn’t even bother being surreptitious. And if he got in without being audited by Athena first surely she would have sounded the alarm. So all in all, the thought of being on guard did not cross McCree’s mind.

 

McCree was, however, curious enough to wander over with the intention of asking who he was. But the question was not needed as McCree caught a glimpse of the tattoo.

 

McCree thought he should just push Hanzo over the cliff and get all his trouble over with. He was far too wary and paranoid of having someone that would kill his own family to survive on his side.

 

Hanzo had turned around and caught McCree’s eyes during his silent musing. Neither one made any attempt of greeting.

 

“Give me a reason that I shouldn’t just shoot you right here,” McCree said. Hanzo glanced at the gun in McCree’s holster, and showed no sign of further caution other than the tautness that seemed to have settled into his bones. 

 

“Because Genji will make you clean up the blood yourself,” Hanzo deadpanned.

 

“Seemed like the benefits outweigh the risks.”

 

“Hm, I’m not stopping you.”

 

McCree deflated like a cat who had finished their last drop of tuna. “Why are you here?”

 

“Genji.”

 

There were a million hurtful responses that crossed McCree’s mind, but none of them had any actual malicious intent behind them. Formed only from the pernicious humor McCree developed over the years of being alone, and came to discover it may not be a good way to present himself after he rejoined Overwatch.

 

“Uh huh,” McCree said. “And you’re here for good?”

 

Hanzo’s shoulders twitched slightly. It may have been a shrug. It was so half-assed, even McCree couldn’t tell.

 

“If you are here to speak your mind, then do so,” Hanzo said. “I would rather get it all over with in one day.”

 

“I really just kinda wandered here,” McCree said. “So someone was pissed at you?”

 

“The good doctor made her intention clear.”

 

“Well, she was also there on the day–”

 

Hanzo rounded on him. “Also?”

 

McCree stood his ground and gave Hanzo a look. The man huffed and took a step back.

 

“The Shimada property was under Bla–Overwatch surveillance at the time. I was there too.”

 

“Then I am sure you have your own thoughts on the matter.”

 

“I do,” McCree agreed. “And it might involve me distrusting you – but it may not for the obvious reason.”

 

“And why wouldn’t it be?”

 

“Sometimes you just can’t have it both ways,” McCree said, nonchalantly.

 

Hanzo was quiet and calculating. His eyes were darker than McCree remembered. It might have been that Hanamura was just too bright, though McCree doubted it.

 

Hanzo’s feature curled into an ugly grimace when he came to a conclusion of some sort. McCree took out his cigarillo and waited. He was in no rush.

 

“But you cannot possibly – Genji said there were no records – unless,” Hanzo stopped.

 

McCree lit his cigarillo.

 

“You were the man in the garden, the day they…”

 

McCree blew out a ring of smoke.

 

“You saved him.”

 

That made McCree barked a laugh. “No, I didn’t. The good doctor did.”

 

“But without you, they wouldn’t have got there in time. He would have – I would have –”

 

“But he didn’t.”

 

Hanzo was quiet after that. Perhaps thinking of Genji as alive was still something that jarred Hanzo immensely.

 

McCree smirked. “Do you remember me clocking you in the back of the head?”

 

Hanzo scowled. “I knew I did not ‘passed out from shock’”

 

“You were just standing there, _in shock_. Didn’t even notice me coming up behind you.”

 

McCree finished his smoke in silence after that. The waves were reflecting the moonlight, glimmering on the edge of his sight. Hanzo turned to look at the sea with him. Then McCree realized the moon wasn’t out – the sea was reflecting the stars.

 

“Thank you,” Hanzo said.

 

McCree watched the waves reflecting the starlight, his mind processing Hanzo’s words. Maybe it was time to roll up the crumbled bitterness from the years, the imperfections and the anger and all the crevices that formed in him, and cast it into the sea to bury them all under the stars. McCree finally took Hanzo in for the first time, all the dark circles and the rigid muscles and the perpetual pain in his eyes. Hanzo could slave and slave and slave away in the dark for redemption and live like a dead man all he wanted, but his readiness to thank someone who saved his brother was enough for McCree to know that Hanzo was worthy enough to live in the starlight. But gratitude is easy. Forgiveness is hard. And compared to trust both are like a walk in the garden. Hanzo was willing to offer his gratitude, but whether or not he was ready to put his life in the hands of other lives and vice versa seemed like a treasure map with no X on it. How would they know if it was worth the work?

 

McCree gave the new Overwatch a map of his own – scarred, a farrago of wits and violence and vices, with no X on it – and they thought they should be the cautious ones when McCree was the one worrying his heart out from having to trust people once again.

 

It was stupid, and childish, and irrational when the subject in question was Hanzo, but McCree was glad to have someone as ambivalent as he was about being here with him. Trust was much easier when there was someone doing it with you.

 

“You’re welcome,” McCree said eventually. “I still don’t like you, though.”

 

Hanzo laughed. “That makes the two of us.”

  
  
“Why do you take away my fun? It ain’t fun if you agree with it.”

 

“I know,” Hanzo chuckled deeply again. “How about a drink? And I will let you have your fun.” Hanzo looked at the horizon. It was nearing five in the morning. “Or maybe, coffee? For old times’ sake.”

  
  
McCree raised an eyebrow. His lips twitched despite his effort to look passive. "For old times’ sake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a fun exercise to do :) I have some thoughts on my tumblr on why as to McCree's reaction to Hanzo and Genji's history may not be as serious as some people hc it if some people is interested at checking it out or discussing! thanks for reading

**Author's Note:**

> or is it mccree bb
> 
> You can find me on [Tumblr](http://cibeeeeee.tumblr.com/) and/or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/spiciestcibee?lang=zh-tw)


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